The education of a fag basher....

[MORTARDUDE]

personal note : My neighbors on one side are two gay men. They are the best neighbors I have ever had in 29 years of home ownership...and I have had some real yo-yos as neighbors !!!!


http://www.phillyburbs.com/pb-dyn/ne...003-78934.html
The education of a fag basher


Growing up in Levittown in the 1970s, a common put-down was to call another guy a faggot.

No one minded. Adults didn't. At least no kid worried that saying the word in mixed company risked having one's mouth washed with soap.

Dress different? Faggot.

Lisp? Ya fag.

Can't play dodge ball? Fag boy.

Hang with the wrong kids? You scum-sucking fa-

Well, you get my point.

We never considered that these insults landed like fists in the gut. No doubt a lot of silent suffering went on.

Too bad the adults didn't realize this and stop it, or realize that they may have unknowingly stoked violent demons that, in time, would leap out. Reduce a person to a vulgar slur and it's easy to bash 'em, ain't it?

Years later, I worked my way through Temple University as a bartender.

The place was called Ristorante Galleria, in South Philly. It was beautiful. The bar was copper lined and framed in Northern California white oak. Behind it was back-lit stained glass, portraying the four seasons.

The owner, Chef Carlo, had an artist brother in northern Italy who did most of the paintings and sculptures in the place.

You could buy them, if you had the dough.

Many of the waiters were students at the Curtis Institute of Music and sang opera for the customers.

It was classy. Even I, shaggy and unshaven, had to wear a tux shirt and bow tie.

The manager told me the place previously catered to a gay clientele, and almost every Saturday night, a group of gay men, a half-dozen of them, came to drink.

I'm not a chit-chatty bartender. I pour your booze; you get buzzed and leave me a tip.

But I got to know the gay dudes, mainly because they were regulars - and great tippers.

One was a writer and we both admired the Irish short story writer Elizabeth Bowen.

The youngest guy in the group was about my age. He was slight, quiet and wore fuzzy pastel cardigan sweaters.

The guys joked and laughed. Man, could they drink. They talked about art and visiting Venice. They busted on each other and filled the bar with great bursts of laughter.

The people in the dining room must have thought there was a party in the bar.

The men always marveled at the Christ crucified sculpture that Carlo displayed in the far corner.

The sculpture was solid wood bent into an "S." It was about 5 feet high, but only 5 inches wide. Yet it contained every detail of Christ on the crucifix.

One of the guys said he'd buy it if he could ever come up with $1,500, which is what Carlo wanted for it.

One night I arrived for work and the men were at the bar, silent. They looked terrible.

The night before, the cardigan sweater guy had been attacked by thugs on South Street, who got him on the ground and kicked his head.

He was on a ventilator, which tells you how violent the beating was.

I recall one of the men saying, "I guess we have to be more careful."

I thought: Why would anyone want to hurt this quiet, decent guy? They didn't know him, the creeps.

I bought the men a round. The least I could do.

Over the years, each time I hear a gay-bashing story, say, the murder of Tony Milano in Levittown in 1987, or the killing of Matthew Shepard in 1998, I think maybe the attackers grew up calling other guys faggots, and never knew a gay person as a person.

Maybe that's Sen. Rick Santorum's problem, and that of people who subscribe to his smarmy brand of Neanderthal conservatism, which believes gay sex threatens the traditional family.

Brilliant.

See, it's easy to bash someone when you don't know them.

I've met Santorum. I've interviewed him. I spent a day with him in Harrisburg when he ran for re-election in 2000.

He's a jerk.

That aside, does Santorum know any gay people? I mean, know them for their humor and their friendship and - here's a concept - for their humanity?

If so, how can he ruminate with such vulgarity about them as he did the other day to the AP, and then go back home and face them?

I wouldn't have the guts.

On Wednesday, I wrote about how liberals are the new "angry white males" in America, not conservatives. I used as an example Garrison Keillor, the host of "A Prairie Home Companion" and his screed against Minnesota Republican Sen. Norm Coleman.

I said his show is broadcast on National Public Radio. It ain't. It's produced by Prairie Home Productions, presented by Minnesota Public Radio and distributed by Public Radio International, according to PRI executive assistant Linda Sue Anderson, who asked for a correction.

You got it, Linda Sue.

J.D. Mullane can be reached at 215.949.5745 or at jmullane@phillyBurbs.com. His column appears Sunday, Wednesday and Friday.


April 25, 2003 5:14 AM

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